...well besides getting killed...but what a Queen's Birthday weekend! Once again it was the National Accordion Championships. This must've been the worst prepared us Anderson brothers have been for the competitions of any year, as we hadn't even memorised our trio till the night before, and due to uni and everything I hadn't done enough practice!
It all started off on Saturday. None of us had any classes in the morning. In fact I was the only one out of the Anderson brothers performing that day in the NZ/South Pacific Open Solo class (second top one). My first stuff-up of the competitions happened a couple months ago. I entered the wrong class. I was supposed to enter the top class but thought my teacher wanted me to enter the second class! Oh well so I had to perform in the second class.
I was drawn last to perform, and so I had quite a while waiting for each of the five contestants ahead of me perform their 10-15 minute programmes. My programme consisted of Sonata in D Minor by Scarlatti, Sonata in D by Haydn and Russian Dance by Shenderyov. I've never performed Sonata in D Minor before and only got it up to full speed the week before, and I had performed Sonata in D Minor three other times and screwed it up each time, so my confidence wasn't too high! I was hoping like hell I wouldn't screw it up for the fourth time!
While waiting in the Draw Room with this other accordionist George, I admit to a little bit of
Please screw up please screw up please screw up!!!
while listening to the other competitors perform over the PA, but to be honest who doesn't think that?! ;) Well you'll be pleased to know they all performed very well! Except for me that is...I finally got on stage, and screwed up my first piece! My second piece the one I've screwed up three previous times, didn't actually go too bad and I managed to get through it without stuffing it up too much! Then came Russian Dance which is probably my most confident piece as since it's more of a dance I don't have to play 'delicate' and 'light'. It was all going good...till my last part where I was supposed to get faster and faster with my runs. My fingers lost it, I lost my place and ended up playing a bass solo until I could find the right place to come back in! Oh the shaaame!!
I didn't get a placing, and some of the comments on my scoring sheet were:
(under Programme) "Pieces suitable for concert/exam. Need more flashier pieces for competition"
I've never had a comment like that before! I'll be sure to take that on board for next year!
Later that night when we got home Aonghas, Hamish and I got practising for the next day of competitions, which would feature our trio, duet, and Aonghas's solo. While taking a break, Aonghas left his accordion sitting on the ground, which was a good place for it to get knocked, leaving it with some stuck notes! Aonghas's accordion was broked! We started working out a contingency plan. Aonghas would have to use my accordion for his solo and the duet, while I would have to use Hamish's for the duet. As for the trio, we'd have to try beg someone to lend theirs to Aonghas to borrow. Aonghas, who hadn't even learnt his pieces fully and memorised them was practising right up to 2am (trying to be as quiet as possible so as to not disturb the neighbours!). He was contemplating pulling out altogether as well.
Sunday morning arrived. We got up, quickly had a few practise runs before our mum shouted us out of the house. My mum went out to arrange the accordions in the car while I was waiting on the computer to finish transferring photos. With my mum shouting at me, I quickly grabbed the card and the camera, shut the door and left the house. When I got to the car, Aonghas asked for the keys to the car. That's when my mum realised her handbag was in the house... WE LOCKED OURSELVES OUT OF OUR HOUSE We went around the house trying to look for possible ways to get back in but our house was securely locked! (thanks to our dad who's a secure freak!!) My mum called over a neighbour who brought along some of her own keys and a wire, so we had a go with them, but none of them worked. We thought we'd give lock-picking a go, but we aren't skilled thieves so that failed too!
I rang my accordion teacher to let him know we locked ourselves out of the house and would be late to the competition, as our first class would be at 9.05am in the morning! I also delivered him the bad news about Aonghas breaking his accordion. He said he'd try get our classes shifted while we try get back into our house.
We rang our uncle originally to ask for advice on how to get into our house (no he's not a thief..just skilled with tools!) but he did one better and offered to take us to the competitions. The only thing is..our judges' copy of our music was locked inside the house as well! We decided to drive all the way to our dad's office in the city to grab his keys, come back home, unlock the house and grab our stuff before heading to the competitions.
FINALLY we got to the competitions late. I went inside first with my accordion and as soon as I entered the foyer some people sitting around eating their morning tea stood up and started clapping! I thought OK.... I then walked into the draw room where all the accordions are stored, and Jessica and Christopher (my accordion rivals) turned to me, smiled exclaiming how I was finally here. I asked them if they knew, and they told me one of the competition organisers went around telling everyone the Andersons locked themselves out of their house!
It was funny. Everyone smiled as we walked past, and we got quite a few people telling us they heard about our morning and that things would get better! Aonghas had some Asian man ask him how we got locked out of the house. He had to explain to the man that we did it to ourselves! My mum was talking to another lady, and she didn't even need to say something:
"You...heard about this morning didn't you?"
".....Yeah"
As soon as we all got there we were shepherded straight onto stage, but not before we pointed out that Aonghas's accordion was stuffed. The backstage crew were frantically trying to see if there was anything they could do to fix it before they concluded it couldn't be fixed straight away. So Aonghas had to borrow someone else's accordion which was a lot larger than his!
Our trio went OK, as did our duet. Aonghas's solo...let's not go there! All I'll say is that he got there!
We watched a few performances before the results were announced. We won our trio and duet, while Aonghas came second in his class. Once the results were over, we caught up with my very first accordion teacher Sonja. We had a good catch up before going our separate ways for lunch. I was talking to someone else, and when I turned to walk away I bumped straight into her, who was carrying a cup of coffee at the time, and spilt it all over her hand! She was like
"That really hurt Calum! You gave me third degree burns!" (she was joking)
I offered to help clean up with my big pile of tissues in my pocket but she said it was OK. Not a great day!
The afternoon farewell performance was good, even though I dozed off slightly during the performances by the Australians (nothing against the Australians!) The world champion performed, including performing a piece Jessica played earlier in the weekend, but of course Jessica played it better ;)
So yeah. Broken accordion, screwed up solo performances, locking ourselves out of the house, spilling coffee on former teacher, spending $3.00 worth of mobile phone calls - 2007 accordion championships not too successful, but definitely memorable!
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